I found this little web site that seems to have had the same idea I’ve had — squares or paragraphs of words that could be identified as poems or could be identified as short-shorts, or … It’s called Six Little Things, and they have an interesting selection of pieces. I like calling them “pieces.” I like the whole idea of losing the right-ragged edge of poetry, losing the paragraphs of prose, losing the identifying marks that make a reader think they know what happens next.
I have a few that are sonnets in disguise (don’t tell the editor, in case I send some). They’re formal verse in sheep’s clothing. It amuses me to send them off to editors I don’t imagine will catch on. It amuses me to imagine them being published by one of those magazines that states in their guidelines, “No sonnets, no rhyme.”
Stealth sonnets. I call them Cubes. Shhh …